This blog is dedicated to sharing the concept that our hands are essential to learning- that we engage the world and its wonders, sensing and creating primarily through the agency of our hands. We abandon our children to education in boredom and intellectual escapism by failing to engage their hands in learning and making.

Wednesday, January 02, 2013

"Are not the hands????"

From Christian Gotthilf Salzmann,

"I am of the opinion... that it is requisite to a good education that the child should perform some manual task in real earnest... Are not the hands, then, man's most noble tools? Is it conceivable that his spirit should be developed, or its manifold capacities be brought to light, when his best instrument is rusting, when his hands are put to no use?"

In this month's National Geographic, an article explores the genetic basis for our urge to explore. The article states:"[Jim] Noonan makes a good case that our big brain and clever hands build a capacity for imagination." "Think of a tool," says Noonan,"If you can use it well and have imagination, you think of more applications for it."

Today in the Clear Spring School wood shop, first, second and third
grade students had a "creative" or "free day" in which they got to do
whatever they wanted. To be cut loose to explore their own creative
inclinations is exactly what the article in National Geographic
describes.

The 7th, 8th and 9th grade students worked on our multi-legged bench for the school office.
In the photos above and below, a third grade student used a scroll saw for the first time to make a sun from her own imagination. A second grade student made a coat rack for her father.

About Me

I have been a self-employed woodworker in Eureka Springs, Arkansas since 1976. I live with my wife Jean on a wooded hillside overlooking our beautiful historic community.
In addition to work in my wood shop, I teach children at the Clear Spring School in a program called "The Wisdom of the Hands." My eighth book "Beautiful Boxes, Design and Technique" was published by Taunton Press in September 2014. I also write for Fine Woodworking and other woodworking magazines.
My resume can be downloaded at
www.dougstowe.com/resume.doc